Old and New London, A Narrative of its History, its People and its Places. Illustrated with Numerous Engravings from the Most Authentic Sources. vol 3
Thornbury, Walter
1872-78
Chapter LX: Historical Reminiscences of the Houses of Parliament.
Chapter LX: Historical Reminiscences of the Houses of Parliament.
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Having thus described the buildings of the old and the new Palace, we venture to devote a chapter to a few scattered notes on subjects relating to the inner life of the Houses of Parliament, as likely to be of interest to English readers, because they will throw light on our national history; and if they are fragmentary it must be remembered that a regular chapter on the history of the English Parliament would be foreign to the plan and scope of the present work. | |
There is nothing in our history more uncertain than the birth of our Parliaments and the extent of their power in their early days. Blackstone says that and how members were returned to the or Michel-Gemote, or Wittenagemote, of our Saxon ancestors, it would, doubtless, puzzle the learning of modern Anglo-Saxon scholars to ascertain with precision. observes a writer in , If this be so, no wonder that the early Norman kings should have summoned the bishops and the leading abbots of monasteries to aid their lay nobles in their deliberations for the good of the nation at large. | |
In these early days it would appear that the government of this country was not altogether in the hands of the sterner sex, for we read that in the reigns of Henry III. and abbesses, if no more, were summoned to Parliament-namely, those of Shaftesbury, Barking, Winchester, and Wilton. In the of Edward III. there were summoned, by writ, to Parliament by their proxies, Mary, Countess of Norfolk, Eleanor, Countess of Ormonde, Anne, Lady de Spenser, Phillippe, Countess of March, Joanna, Lady Fitzwalter, Agneta and Mary, Countesses of Pembroke, Margaret, Lady de Roos, Matilda, Countess of Oxford, and Catherine, Countess of Athol. These ladies were called by their proxies, it being a privilege of the peerage to appear by such representation. | |
Gurdon, in his goes even farther back than this, for he says that
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In , Henry III. summoned a Parliament to meet at ; and there Hubert de Burgh, having opened the proceedings by an explanatory speech, asked for money At the assembly refused to make any grant, but it was finally agreed that a of all movable property should be given, on the express condition, however, that the king should ratify the charters. Henry, accordingly, gave a ratification of Magna Charta, together with a ratification of the Charter of Forests, and sent fresh orders to some of his officer, who had hitherto treated them with little respect, to enforce all their provisions. | |
On the , another Parliament was summoned by the above monarch in the same place. At this time a scarcity of provisions, combined with the growing weakness and misgovernment of the king, had disposed the people to desperate measures. The barons, who had formed a new confederacy, went to Hall in complete armour.
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At the commencement of the century the Parliament of England had come to be a more important element in the State than heretofore, the people being more fully and equitably represented. It consisted of the estates--the nobility, the clergy, and the commons, while the last of these classes consisted of between and members, composed partly of knights, citizens, and burgesses. In this way, every grade of rank in the commonalty, and every trade and profession, could find its representative and advocate in the great legislative assembly of the kingdom. | |
In the reign of Henry VI., on Parliament being summoned to meet, orders were sent to the members that they should not wear swords; so they came to Parliament (like modern butchers) with long staves, whence the Parliament got the name of and when the batts were prohibited, the members had recourse to stones and leaden bullets. This Parliament was opened with the Confirmation of Liberties. | |
Whenever she appeared in public, as we learn from Bohun's the great Tudor queen was always richly decked out with costly clothes, and adorned with gold and jewels. he writes,
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The closing scene of the Parliament of Charles I. was marked by the committal to the Tower of some or members of the for their opposition to the king's will and pleasure; and an indirect intimation by Charles of his intention of dispensing with Parliaments altogether. | |
The celebrated assembly, known as the Long Parliament, which met for the time at , on the , commenced its proceedings at in the morning; but after some time the attendance of members being found slack and irregular, sundry devices were resorted to, with the view of counteracting a movement which gave too much favour to early risers. At time a- roll was called; and at another it was ordered that whoever did not come at o'clock and be at prayers, should pay a fine of . On the morning after this order was made, there was an excellent attendance. The House was full, but prayers could not be said. Mr. Speaker himself was not there-at a quarter before , in he walked. Prayers being over, Sir Harry Mildmay congratulated the House upon the good effect of the order made on the previous day; and said to the Speaker, that which made the Speaker Other members coming in afterwards paid their respective shillings to the Serjeant. This shilling fine seems to have occasioned no little quibbling and contention, and it was accordingly soon relinquished. Another rule adopted in this Parliament, however, attained a firmer footing. On the , in the same year, there was a long dispute as to who should speak; many members stood up at time, each claiming precedence, and each backed by his friends. The confusion became intolerable. The passing of some rule preventing such discord in future was indispensable; and at last, as Sir Simonds D'Ewes tells us, and so it has remained down to the present day. | |
Towards the close of the year , while the Commons'were debating upon a treaty with King Charles, who was then in the hands of Cromwell, the House was surrounded by the regiment of | |
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horse of Colonel Rich and the foot regiment of Colonel Pride. These measures were taken with the view of ridding, or its Presbyterian majority. Colonel Pride, from whose active part in it the operation has been called posted himself in the lobby, and arrested of the leading Presbyterian members as they arrived, and sent them to prison. The was continued on the following day. Not a few of the obnoxious members fled into the country, or hid themselves in the city; so that in a few days all that were left in the were some Independents, who were afterwards styled the Cromwell, who had in the meantime arrived in London, then went into the House, and received their for his
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As might naturally be expected, there has been no lack of in the Lower House of Parliament from the day when Oliver Cromwell, attended by Lambert and a few other officers, and a file of musketeers, came into the Chamber of the Commons, and pointing to the Speaker's mace, surmounted with the crown, told Harrison-a religious enthusiast, who had been as active in bringing the Long Parliament to an end as Pride had been in purging it--to The scene is familiar to most educated readers, thanks to the engraver's art. by , it would appear, the members quickly left the House, and thus a clearance was soon effected, and the dissolved. Cromwell issued proclamations containing the grounds and reasons for dissolving the late Parliament and calling a new ; the latter consisted of some The most noted of these members was Barbone, a dealer in leather, whose name, converted into was afterwards applied to the whole Parliament, though the more common appellation for that assembly was the
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would like to have been present, even as a little mouse, at that sitting in , when the House sent for the astrologer, William Lilly, and called on him then and there to explain of his hieroglyphics, which seemed to foretell the Great Fire of London. We suspect, however, if the truth must be told, that it was not so much as an astrologer that he was consulted, as with a view of discovering if he had been made the depository of any information or rumours which might have led him to expect such a catastrophe. | |
In the riots which arose out of the publication of No. of the North , by John Wilkes, the mob showed an amount of violence which had been unheard of for a century, within the very precincts of and they were all but taking the life of Lord Mansfield. Indeed, if we may believe an eye-witness-Mr. Cradock--they proceeded to even greater lengths; at all events, he writes in his -- Such scenes have not often happened either before or since. | |
The death of the Earl of Chatham, painted by Copley, has been made so well known by the engraving that it is scarcely necessary to do more than just mention it here in connection with the old House of Peers. On the , the Duke of Richmond, as Principal Secretary of State, moved an address to the King, urging, in strong terms, the necessity of immediately recognising the independence of our North American colonies. America, he said, was lost, and her independence established; further struggles against the state of things were useless. Lord Chatham came down to the House, very feeble, and bowed down with bodily infirmity. He wore his court dress of black velvet, but from his knees downward he was wrapped in flannel. He was led into the House leaning on the arms of of his brother peers, when all the House rose through respect for him. He was pale and thin, but his eye sparkled with all its original fire and lustre. When the Duke had ended, Lord Chatham rose, and, lamenting that his ailments had prevented his attendance on the duties of his station, he declared that he had now made an effort beyond his powers, and that he was probably in his place for the last time in his life. In the strongest terms, however, he objected to the disgrace of surrendering the rights of the mother-country, and of abandoning its fairest possessions; and concluded his speech by urging that England should make more effort to recover the revolted states, or to fall in the effort like men. In reply, the Duke of Richmond said that he knew of no means by which England could resist the combined forces of America and France, adding that if Lord Chatham could not point out those means, no man living could do so. Much agitated, Lord Chatham made another effort to address the House, but before he could articulate more than a word or , he fell down suddenly in a convulsive fit. The Duke of | |
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Cumberland, Lord Temple, and other peers who were near him, caught him in their arms; the House was cleared, and the debate adjourned. His lordship was taken off in his carriage to his favourite seat at Hayes, near , in Kent, where he lingered in an almost speechless state for a month, and died early in May. On the news of his death reaching the , it was voted that a monument should be erected to his memory in , that should be granted towards the payment of his debts; and that a provision should be made for his family in the shape of a pension of a year, payable out of the Civil List, to be settled on the earldom. The title, however, became extinct on the death of his son and successor, in . It is said-though, probably, with some little exaggeration--of the eloquence of the Earl of Chatham, that
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When Lord North was Premier, in , he was waited on in the House by Lord George Germain and Lord Stormont, with the intelligence of the defeat and surrender of the British forces in under Lord Cornwallis. His subordinates arrived between and o'clock in the morning, were admitted, and told the sad news. says Sir N. W. Wraxall,
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In the March following, Lord North, having been defeated on the American War, and proceeded leisurely up the House, amidst the cries of and to announce his retirement from office. The scene inside and outside the House on this occasion has been well described by Sir N. W. Wraxall, who was then present. It appears, from his narrative, that to the very end Lord North retained that serenity and tranquillity which he had shown when he had behind his back a triumphant majority of supporters.
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His lordship was accustomed to sleep during the Parliamentary harangues of his adversaries, leaving Sir Grey Cooper to note down anything remarkable. During a debate on ship-building, some tedious speaker entered on an historical detail, in which, commencing with Noah's ark, he traced the progress of the art regularly downwards. When he came to mention the Spanish Armada, Sir Grey inadvertently awoke the slumbering Premier, who inquired at what era the honourable gentleman had arrived. Being answered,
said he,
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Lord North, corpulent, easy, and good-natured, was most popular in the ; he was, however, very awkward in his gait, so awkward indeed that, if we may believe the gossiping Sir N. W. Wraxall, on occasion when the House was full, he took off on the point of his sword the wig of his right-hand neighbour, Mr. Welbore Ellis, and carried it across a considerable part of the floor without ever suspecting or perceiving his mistake. | |
If our readers would gain a view of the inside of the as it was in the good old days, they should go to the pleasant and gossiping pages of Sir N. W. Wraxall, who thus describes that august chamber on the night after Lord North's ministry had given place to the coalition under Lords Rockingham and Shelburne :
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Sir Nathanael Wraxall also tells the following good story, under the date , showing that even at that period the circumlocution office and its red tape virtually existed:--
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In the lobby of the old House, [extra_illustrations.3.530.1] , the Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer, was assassinated by a pistol being discharged at him by a disappointed Russian merchant, named [extra_illustrations.3.530.2] , on Monday, the . The following particulars of this tragic event are condensed from the evidence given at the inquest:--Bellingham had lived as a merchant in Liverpool, and, some weeks previous to the murder, had called on General Gascoyne, M.P. for that borough, and requested his assistance to assert his claims upon Parliament, alleging that he had been falsely arrested at St. Petersburg, and that he had applied without effect to the then resident ambassador. The general recommended him to memorialise the minister. Nothing more appears to have been heard or seen of him till the afternoon of the above day, when, at about o'clock, as Mr. Perceval was entering the lobby of the , he was suddenly fired at by Bellingham, who was at once recognised by General Gascoyne, who happened to be in the House at the time. On the following Friday, the prisoner was brought to trial at the ; he was found guilty, and condemned to death. His execution took place on the Monday morning after, in front of Newgate; so that the whole proceedings connected with this lamentable affair took place within short week. | |
Connected with this event, there happened a circumstance so extraordinary and unaccountable, that, as it is probably very little known, we recount it for the benefit of our readers. It was narrated in the principal newspapers at the time of the murder, and some years afterwards, the late Dr. Abercrombie was enabled, by the kindness of a medical friend, to obtain an account of it from the gentleman to whom the circumstance occurred. It was afterwards published by Dr. Abercrombie in his The facts are simply as follow:--In the night of the , Mr. Williams, of Scorrior House, Redruth, Cornwall, dreamed that he was standing in the lobby of the , when a short gentleman entered, dressed in a blue coat and white waistcoat; immediately afterwards he saw a man, in a brown coat with yellow basketmetal buttons, draw a pistol from under his coat and discharge it at the former, who instantly fell, the blood issuing from a wound a little below the left breast. He saw the murderer seized by some gentlemen who were standing by, and dreamed that he was told that the murdered man was the Chancellor. | |
He awoke in great terror, and, rousing his wife, related the dream to her. She, however, made light of it, and he went to sleep again. Twice again, however, during the night were the same dreadful events presented to his imagination. | |
In the morning Mr. Williams made his strange dream known to all his acquaintances, and so great. was the impression it made on his own mind that it was with much difficulty his friends dissuaded him from travelling to London to make it known. to the Chancellor himself. | |
After being the talk of the neighbourhood for some few days, the matter rested, until the news was received that on that very day Mr. Perceval was shot in the lobby of the , by a man named Bellingham. Some time afterwards Mr. Williams went to London, where he was shown the pictures of the murder (which were then published), and also the scene of the event itself. And it was found that the whole of the details of the dream corresponded with those of the real occurrence. The dresses of the murderer and his victim, the scene of the event, the title of the victim, the position occupied by the principal actors in the terrible tragedy, all agreed in the most startling manner with Mr. Williams's dream, which was thus entirely fulfilled. | |
It is not given to every to nor is it easy to say what are the precise qualifications for Parliamentary success in that line. Mr. Rae tells us, in his noble work on --
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Mr. Mark Boyd, in his when speaking of the casting vote of the Speaker, relates a circumstance which bears upon the death of Mr. Pitt. He says: Lord Melville was afterwards tried by his peers, and acquitted. | |
Pitt was remarkable for the neatness and precision of his dress, and for the attention which he paid to the Graces. Fox, on the other hand, was always careless and untidy in his person. To such an extent did he carry this peculiarity, that day an Opposition paper gravely announced, as a piece of fashionable news, that he had
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It is not a little singular that the attainment of place and power by the Pitts was due to an accident. Thomas Pitt, of Brentford, Middlesex, Governor of Fort St. George in the East Indies, in the reign of Queen Anne, by a trifling purchase became the possessor of a diamond weighing carats, which he sold to the King of France for . It was styled the and out of the purchase-money the family became so opulent that Mr. Pitt was enabled to send his son at an early age into the . | |
We are told by those who were present on the happy occasion, that when, in the year , Lord Castlereagh returned to England after concluding the negotiations of peace with France, the whole House rose up and cheered him as he entered. And it is almost needless to add that no less an honour was paid to the Duke of Wellington, in , when he appeared at the bar of the House to return his acknowledgments for an address which had been presented to him at his private residence. | |
It was within the walls of this House that, during the quarter of the present century, Canning, with all his fervid and brilliant rhetoric, would uphold the monarchical and aristocratical character of the English constitution, and scathe Hobhouse and Burdett, Mackintosh and Brougham, with his sarcasms, as often as they started the subject of a reform in the representation of the people. Here, at a later date, Sir Robert Peel, in opposition, would, night,after night, enlighten and charm his audience with his ready and welldisci- plined harangues, couched in flowing periods, and illustrated with the most varied resources of his gifted and classical mind. | |
p.532 [extra_illustrations.3.532.1] | |
In , was instituted a royal commission, consisting of the Lords Erskine, Grenville, Spencer, and Ellenborough, all then members of the cabinet, to inquire into the charges brought against the Princess Caroline Amelia (afterwards Queen Caroline), the consort of George IV. Within a few months after her marriage with the Prince of Wales, domestic differences arose; and these unhappy differences, from whatever cause they sprang, terminated in a separation within months after the birth of her only child, the Princess Charlotte. The Princess of Wales became the inhabitant of a separate establishment, and resided for some years at Blackheath, but in she retired to Italy. Of the life she had been leading during her exile there was many an unfavourable, and even foul report; and although the --as the above commission came to be called-had been extinguished, a new had followed her in her wanderings, and all the reports that were multiplying against her were collected and sent to London as fresh matters of accusation, should circumstances compel such a step. On her return to England, in , the Government pressed proceedings against her. A secret inquiry was held, against which the Queen vehemently protested, demanding time to bring witnesses from abroad, and requesting to be heard by counsel. Messrs. Brougham, Denman, and Williams, being allowed to present themselves at the bar of the House, dwell eloquently upon the hardships of the Queen's case, and on the necessity of delay. On the day after the secret committee had given in its report, the [extra_illustrations.3.532.2] , in pursuance of it, brought in a Bill of Pains and Penalties, intituled The statement of the Attorney-General in support of the bill occupied days in delivery. As he was finishing, the shoutings of a tremendous multitude announced the approach of her Majesty. She entered the , and then the examination of witnesses was commenced. Upon hearing the clerk of the House call the name of Teodoro Majocchi, the witness, the Queen started from her seat with a faint cry, and rushed out of the House. This man had been her servant, and a close eye-witness of most of her proceedings for a long time. It was assumed by some that her emotion and her cry proceeded from conscious guilt, taken by surprise at the production of such a witness; by others it was reasoned that she might have been excited only by disgust and indignation at the ingratitude and treachery of an old servant. The trial having lasted from the to the , the case against the Queen closed, and an adjournment took place to allow time for her counsel to prepare her defence. On the , Mr. Brougham delivered his speech for the defence at great length, and with astonishing eloquence and effect. He was ably followed by Mr. Williams; and the examination of the Queen's witnesses continued until the . When it finished, [extra_illustrations.3.532.3] went over the whole case with vast ability and with equal boldness. we are told, The Bill of Pains and Penalties afterwards passed the and reading, the latter, however, being carried by such a few votes, that Lord Liverpool declared that, looking at this small majority, and at the state of the public feeling, he and his colleagues abandoned the bill. The session of Parliament was in consequence unexpectedly prorogued by his Majesty.
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Mr. Rush, in his draws a vivid picture of scene in the above drama:-- he writes,
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As stated in [extra_illustrations.3.533.1] own private friends looked forward to his introduction into the as a circumstance which would be immediately followed by his obtaining for himself an oratorical reputation equal to that enjoyed by the most popular speakers in that assembly. And come it did. But it was more than years before the clever novelist, having won his spurs as a debater, came to hold office as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and before he took his seat at the head of the Treasury Bench as Premier. | |
The opening of a new Parliament by the sovereign in person is at any time a most interesting circumstance, and never fails to attract a large concourse of persons, not only to the vicinity of the Houses of Parliament, but to every part of the line of procession. The interest of such an occurrence on the occasion of the opening of Parliament by Queen Victoria, after her accession to the throne in , was greatly heightened by her Majesty being an amiable lady of the tender age of eighteen. Loyalty and gallantry, therefore, both combined to draw out the population of London to witness the ceremony, Lady Mary Montagu gives a graphic description of the siege which a troop of duchesses, countesses, and other titled ladies, laid to the door of the gallery of the , when, in her time, some interesting debate was expected; and how, when they found, after a hours' assault, that the gallery was not to be taken by storm, they succeeded in effecting an entrance by stratagem. The ladies in the present case were not under the necessity of attempting an entrance into the gallery by sheer physical force, for they had in most cases procured a Lord Chamberlain's order of admission. The whole of the benches on the floor and the side galleries were occupied by the female portion of the families of the peers, all attired in their costliest and most magnificent dresses; the effect produced by the dazzling splendour of the jewellery, &c., on the mind of the spectator may perhaps be easier imagined than described; suffice it to state that the spectacle was, perhaps, of the most interesting of the kind ever witnessed in this or any other country. On the entry of her Majesty into the House, the peeresses and all present simultaneously rose, An eye-witness of the scene tells us that continues our informant,
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A far different sight to that now witnessed must have been presented by either House of Parliament a century ago, when members wore their stars and their court dress, when wigs had not been laid aside, and when those who did not wear wigs would as soon have omitted to eat their dinner as to powder their hair. The bishops wore their wigs, at all events in their place in Parliament, down to a comparatively late date in her present Majesty's reign. It is recorded that the Duke of Cleveland, who died in , was the very last member of the who appeared in that august assembly with a and powder. It was the French Revolution which really destroyed all the external marks of and what have we gained in exchange? We must candidly acknowledge that a little too much of has come in along with the comparatively unobjectionable elements of
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Footnotes: [extra_illustrations.3.530.1] Mr. Spencer Perceval [extra_illustrations.3.530.2] John Bellingham [] Pitt Speaking in House of Commons [extra_illustrations.3.532.1] House of Lords Fitted for Queen Caroline's Trial [extra_illustrations.3.532.2] Earl of Liverpool [extra_illustrations.3.532.3] Mr. Denman [extra_illustrations.3.533.1] Mr. Disraeli's |